Victoriia Shefer, a student of the 401-HF group majoring in 035 “Philology” at the Faculty of Philology, Psychology and Pedagogy of the National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”, took part in a 9-day youth mobility project “Innovation Through Thinking Out of the Box (In & Out)” under Erasmus+ program, which took place from April 25 to May 2, 2022 in the Greek city of Glyfada and the Greek capital – Athens.
Young people from Ukraine, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Northern Macedonia, Georgia, Armenia and Cyprus became active participants in the international project, gaining practical knowledge in the field of human rights protection in the tourist center of Greece – Glyfada.
The main objectives of the project were to encourage self-knowledge, self-improvement, development of one’s skills and better understanding of one’s rights, needs and responsibilities. The rich program of the project contained a variety of practical, individual and team tasks that motivated young people to actively work on the skills of youth workers.
“Through this project, participants were able to focus on the need to be themselves, identify and “block” factors that hinder self-awareness, such as human rights violations, and be more innovative. Exercises where we imagined and visualized who we wanted to be, helped to understand what we needed to achieve our goals. One of the keys to “unlocking” them is to think differently. This is exactly what we were taught on this international project,” – commented the participant of the training Victoriia Schefer.
At the first stage of the project, trainings on the basics of human rights and methods of raising awareness in the field of human rights among young people were conducted. During the second stage, participants discussed issues of self-awareness, were given creative tasks to control their thoughts and, if possible, write them down on paper, and in the evening to analyze in detail. According to the participants, the tasks significantly helped to better understand themselves and their own spiritual, intellectual and physical needs.
“In the last project I had an interesting experience when almost none of the participants knew how to behave in such a situation: we were given a creative task, where everyone received a piece of paper with the name of mental and physical disabilities or social status. The participant her/himself did not know who s/he was and had to guess based on how people non-verbally communicated with her/him. In a couple of minutes we realized that we know how to behave with a tick-tocker, blogger, but we have no idea about the syndrome of inactivity and attention, depression, even how to behave with blind people we do not know, – said Victoriia Schefer. – It is worth noting that among the participants were people with disabilities. Personally, I learned a lot while communicating with them and during joint activities. For example, we were divided into teams and each team had its disabilities. We had to feel what it was like to be these people, show it to others and share our feelings. It was very useful and informative.”
After completing the training course, in the third stage of the project, participants had the opportunity to turn their ideas into reality and organize various activities for active youth to disseminate information about human rights and awareness of their place in the world.
“Once again I am grateful to the team of the Ukrainian NGO “Development and Initiative” and the project coordinator – Head of International Projects Department of “Dnipro Polytechnic” Kateryna Priazhnikova for the opportunity to develop and enhance my knowledge, improve practical skills within Erasmus+ competencies.
This is my fourth Erasmus+ academic mobility project, and this is the best experience of non-formal education that I can recommend to all higher education seekers, as improving knowledge on a particular topic is combined with a variety of educational activities and cultural experiences, and this is happening in the picturesque cities of European countries. In addition to invaluable experience, I have found many friends with whom I have a close relationship and with whom I have already planned new projects and joint activities. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my teacher, Anna Paveleiva, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation at Poltava Polytechnic, who helped me prepare for the international academic mobility projects I participated in,” – noted Victoriia Shefer.
It should be recalled that National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” supported a flash mob dedicated to the 35th anniversary of Erasmus+ in Ukraine.
Earlier, a philology student took part in the Erasmus+ training on mental health in wartime, in the project of social entrepreneurship development and online training under the Erasmus+ program “Volunteers beyond borders”, and Poltava Polytechnic scientist Anna Pavelieva participated in a 5-day online Erasmus+ academic mobility program “Future Skills Now”, dedicated to improving the professional skills of young teachers and scientists.
Media Center of
National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
